


I guess he's Steve's Pepper

by wrongpool



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Civil War (Marvel), Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony-centric, but i really wanted to share it, it's 4am and i had a wild fic concept, this is the bare minimum
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-03
Updated: 2018-04-03
Packaged: 2019-04-17 21:14:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14197824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wrongpool/pseuds/wrongpool
Summary: Tony realises some stuff. Oh, I don't know, like how nothing on this earth would give him greater pain than to strip Steve of Bucky Barnes.





	I guess he's Steve's Pepper

**Author's Note:**

> it's 4am and i just had a wild idea. basically, what would it take for tony to forgive steve? what process would he go through? i banged it out and here it is. please don't judge the sloppy structure and how short it is - but do let me know if you like it, I might make it an actual coherent story.

All he could see in the pallid face was Rhodey, flung to the Earth in _his_ suit, by a force that _he_ had created. Steve’s harrowing scream reminded Tony of himself as he watched Pepper fall, screaming, into a pit of fire and rubble put there by _him_. His heart bled.

And in a flash of clarity, while crushed by rubble and separated from the rest of the team, he understood.

Barnes was not simply to Steve as Rhodey was to him. Barnes was to Steve as Rhodey, Pepper, Banner, Coulson, his parents and everyone Tony had ever cared for were to him.

Steve and Barnes were brothers, childhood friends, high-school sweethearts, wartime buddies and everything in-between. Barnes was no wartime dog that Steve had bonded with in the trenches – they were not his father’s wartime buddies who served only to ignite a long lost nationalism – they were the only familiar thing the other had. Barnes was the single, only connection Steve had to his home, and that was the thought that forced upon Tony a weight he had never felt before. For the extent to which he and Steve had trusted each other before the incident was arguable at best, but Bucky had grown with, starved with and loved with Steve in the 40s – in some of the hardest times there were for one man to love another.

Tony dragged himself through the mud to the murderer. The soldier. The assassin. The man who killed his parents and could now not fight back even if he tried. His body was crushed beneath a crumbled wall and pinned to the ground by a metal pipe. There was a horrible burning sensation behind Tony’s eyes. He choked on his uneven breaths and he pulled himself to sit next to the unconscious man.

Why now, Tony begged himself, was he only understanding? After all, if his tethers to the world, his Pepper and his Rhodey had been tortured and brainwashed and held prisoner, beaten and frozen for decades, wouldn’t he have risked anything to see them safe? Wouldn’t he still, even if it were at the expense of, say, Steve’s parents? Or Thor’s? Wouldn’t he have fought tooth and nail to protect them, to prove their innocence and honour from teammates who were unwilling to listen and from the unjust law? Wouldn’t he, if Steve had been deranged with anger, holding his shield to Pepper and Rhodey’s throats, beaten him to nothing less than a pulp to save them?

The heart which once screamed for Tony to finish Barnes off, to rip the life from him and make him suffer for his mother’s and father’s death, was gone. He knew now that nothing on this Earth would give him greater pain than to strip Steve of Bucky Barnes.

Tony ripped away his broken helmet. He trembled with guilt and fear, unsure of what to do in this lightless cavern with nothing but an enemy’s body and a broken suit.

Letting his head fall against the wall behind him and struggling to choke down tears, Tony wished for an alternate reality. One where it had not taken Steve’s desperate cry, his indescribably horrid, empty eyes, for him to see the truth.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading, you legend!


End file.
